The present invention relates to an athletic ball, particularlly to an athletic ball used in games such as soccer ball lifting game and Japanese traditional Kemari which are to compete for the number of kicks before the ball falls on the ground or in the duration time of the ball in the air.
When ball lifting which is a soccer player technique, namely, the exercise that one player keeps a ball without dropping it on the ground by using the instep, knee, chest, forehead and others, is employed as a game to compete for the number of kicks, the ball keeping time or the duration time in the air, ususally the number of kicks must be counted by a man. Especially it is impossible to translate difficulty of the technique such as the ball keeping time and the duration time of each kick into points by the player's individual judgement without another man for measurement. Even a man assists to measure, subjectivity is included in the judgement of technical difficulty, and thus the objective evaluation is difficult. In an infant's game Temari (dribble game) it is difficult for an infant to play while counting the number of actions. Accordingly, it is very convenient if the number of actions is automatically counted.
An infant's toy ball which makes sound on a kick has been known, for instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,849,819. In such a ball the outgoing of air from the inside of the ball or the rolling of a bell put in the ball is used for such a sound source, but it is impossible to vary the sound depending on the action or the situation. Thus, it is not suitable for the games to compete for the high technique of lifting or dribble.
An object of the present invention is to provide an athletic ball which enables the objective evalution, comprising means for external force counting, means for displaying and means for sound emission in the ball itself. The athletic ball encounts the external force applied to the ball automatically when kicked and displays the difficulty of the athletic technique which is translated into numerical values. Also the athletic ball enables a player to concentrate in the game becuase the ball itself notifies the player at every kick, first kick, last kick, and violation of the rule with different sounds.